Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, November 14, described anti-virus software pioneer, John McAfee, as “bonkers,” and urged him to surrender himself to the police.
McAfee, 67, who is wanted for questioning as “a person of interest” by San Pedro Police in connection with the murder of his neighbour Gregory Viant Faull, has been on the run since Sunday.
The story, however, has garnered a lot of international media attention, and McAfee, who is in hiding somewhere in Belize and has maintained his innocence, has been speaking exaggeratedly to U.S. Journalists.
In one of his several interviews with Wired magazine’s contributing editor Joshua Davis, he said that he fears for his life if the police get their hands on him.
In an essay that he e-mailed to Davis on Wednesday, November 14, McAfee writes: “I have modified my appearance in a radical fashion, I’ll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately.”
He also explained to Wired magazine how on Sunday, he buried himself in the sand to avoid the police, when they arrived at his house. He said he was able to breathe through a cardboard box, with which he had covered his head.
However, on Wednesday, PM Barrow told reporters that “Mr. McAfee – I hope – has proven by his utterances, and by his behaviour that he is not anybody to be taken seriously, with respect certainly to the defamation campaign on which he is embarked against this country and its officials.”
Police Press Officer, Raphael Martinez has confirmed that San Pedro Police has detained three persons in connection with their investigation into the murder of retired American Gregory Viant Faull, 53, whose body was discovered around 7:20 a.m. Sunday, November 11, at his San Pedro home.
In addition, police have also arrested and charged McAfee’s personal body guard, British citizen William Mulligan, 29, and his wife Stefanie, 22, with two counts of possession of firearm without a gun license and one count of possession of ammunition without a gun license, when they appeared in the San Pedro Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, they were transferred to the Belize Central Prison, to await their next court appearance.
The charges are in relation to two single action 12 gauge shotguns that police allegedly found in their possession along with twenty-seven 12 gauge cartridges. It is believed that the guns are licensed, but the license holder left them at McAfee’s house.
San Pedro Sun reported that the license holders, Eddie Ancona and Alberto Chacon, were both charged with one count of lending a firearm without written permission from the Commissioner of Police.
According to police, Faull’s maid, Laura Tun, 37, a resident of Boca Del Rio, San Pedro, found him lying dead on his living room floor.
He had a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
Police Crime Scene technicians reportedly found a single 9mm Lugar brand, expended shell at the scene of the murder.
Police reported that a laptop computer and an Apple Iphone had gone missing from Faull’s house. There was no sign of forced entry to the house, police reported.
On Tuesday, a team of U.S, forensic experts arrived in Belize, and apart from examining Faull’s body at the KHMH Morgue, they travelled to San Pedro and processed the crime scene.
According to media reports out of San Pedro, Faull, who is a close neighbour of McAfee, have had a few run-ins with McAfee.
The apparent misunderstanding between the two expatriates is over McAfee’s small army of armed security guards and a number of ferocious dogs that he had on his property.
Faull had written a formal complaint to San Pedro Mayor to about McAfee’s dogs roaming on the beach.
On Friday night all four of McAfee’s dogs ended up dead. It is suspected that the animals were poisoned.
Faull was murdered sometime between Saturday night and early Sunday morning. He was last seen alive around 10:00 p.m. on Saturday night.
A postmortem examination on Tuesday, November 13, concluded that Faull died as from traumatic shock, due to massive brain injury as a consequence of gunshot injury.